Just another WordPress.com site

Main menu

Monthly Archives: April 2013

This past weekend Kim and I took some time off and went to New Orleans. While there we rendezvoused with Kim’s friend Cindy and her husband Dave. We had an awesome time! Ate too much. Drank too much. But it was nothing short of a great long weekend. I love Cajun and Creole food and couldn’t really get my fill of it. There is SOOOOOO many great restaurants down there. I found Bourbon Street to be a lot of fun. The cacophony was a little intense on most nights and boy was it crowded on Friday and Saturday night. I really can’t imagine what it must be like during Mardi Gras. It’s just got to be crazy. Saturday night we wandered over to Frenchman Street. It’s off the beaten path for most tourists and came highly recommended by several shop keepers. It was AWESOME! Great food and even better music! If you’re looking some of the best music in NOLA this is the street for it. We enjoyed a nice meal and some great music at the Three Muses. I’ll have to admit that Royal Street was probably my favorite street in the French Quarter. Lot’s of cool shops and art galleries. New Orleans is such a great place for local art. But the thing that really blew me away was the quality of musicianship. Even the folks playing in the streets were first rate. It’s probably the only city in the US where tuba players and banjo players can find employment on a regular basis. We enjoyed some spectacular weather. Warm. Low humidity. And plenty of beautiful Sunshine the entire time we were there. It made for some great photography. I will be posting some images in the next day or so. I’ve got to complete and deliver a couple of jobs that I shot before we left. So keep your eyes open for them.

I was trolling Craigslist today looking for any potential gigs when I came across this:

Sadly this seems to be have become common practice across the corporate world. Trying to get someone to “donate” or “volunteer” to give up their images. If you read closely they want to use the images in their “global campaign” with not even so much as a word about potential future work or compensation of any type. Sickening. In the past a job like this would have gone to professional photographer and the company would have had to pay for their time as well as the licensing for those images. Potentially costing them thousands of dollars. Now I can understand if you’re just starting or a small business not being able to afford this type of work and maybe asking for a favor. But if you’re company makes more than $1,000,000 in annual sales the .1% that images for a global campaign to grow your business should not be an issue. Besides it’s called a tax deduction. The photographer who “donates” their time gets nothing. NOTHING. Out of a deal like this. They can’t write off their time or their equipment wear and tear or any of their cost of doing business. I worked in Hollywood for a lot of years both in the music industry and the film business. The number of times I’ve seen this deal of “Hey work on this project for free and I’ll bring you all my future work.” is too numerous to count. The number of times I’ve actually seen those promises kept…………..ZERO. That’s right. NEVER. Now I know that some student or “Mom with a camera” will do this work for them. The images might even be something better than just acceptable, but as someone who tries to make a living at this there can be no forgiving the corporate shills who have the audacity to post things like this. As a professional photographer I am a business too and expect compensation for the work I perform. Sorry I’ll get off my soapbox now. I promise that my next post will have some pictures or at least be more positive.

It seems like it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve done or posted anything that wasn’t for a client or project of some sort. A little while back I was waiting for traffic to clear or something like that while doing exterior shots for the Embassy Suites in downtown Philly. While I was walking across Ben Franklin Parkway I noticed the light shining through the beautiful stained glass of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and Paul. This is one of the shots I got. It was a great moon and beautiful night sky. I’ve got a few more and hopefully will have time in the next little bit to get to finish them and post them. Here’s the first one.

So the good news keeps rollin’ in. I received a phone call yesterday from my friend Rick Brown who, with his wife Bridget, is the on the Park and Rec committee for Westtown Township. Back in December Kim and I did the photography for their Winter Festival and I’ve done subsequent work photographing the Oakbourne Mansion for them. Rick proceeded to tell me some great news. They are using several of my shots in the monthly town magazine. The only problem. They didn’t give me credit for the images. Rick was very apologetic and said that they would include an errata in May’s issue AND they were going to use more of my images next month as well. Let’s hope they don’t forget the credit this time. As soon as I can I’m going to get a copy and check it out.

Well I didn’t get the cover. Drag. I thought the exterior shot was really great. I’ll be interested to see what image they chose. It is the first time I’ve seen my name next to the words Photography by. I hope this feeling of seeing my name as the photographer of record never gets old. Jo Anne from County Lines magazine forwarded me the pdf of the article and I’m very pleased with how the images turned out. There is always that trepidation when sending things to print. Are the colors going to be accurate? How are they going to crop the images? Which image are they going to use for main shot? Not that you have too much control over it. You prep your files as requested. Check your color space for any major shifts. Then it’s up to the layout artist, editors and printers to handle the rest. I think they did a really nice job.